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China’s Chang’e 5 Successfully Lands in Mongolia with Moon Rocks

December 29, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article from Agence France-Presse December 17, 2020 (firstpost.com)

• The unmanned Chinese spacecraft, Chang’e-5, returned and parachuted safely to Earth on December 16th completing the first mission in four decades by any country to collect lunar samples. Scientists hope the samples will give insights into the Moon’s origins and volcanic activity. But the trip was also another high-profile chapter in China’s bid to become a space superpower. In images broadcast on state television, a Chinese flag was flown at the snow-covered grasslands of remote northern Mongolia where the capsule landed.

• The probe’s return “demonstrates the complete accomplishment of China’s first mission to collect samples from an extraterrestrial body,” China’s National Space Administration (CNSA) said. China is only the third country to have retrieved samples from the Moon, following the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s. While there on the Moon, it planted the Chinese flag.

• When the Chang’e 5 probe left the Moon, it marked the first time that China had achieved take-off from an extraterrestrial body (pictured above). It then linked up with the orbiting part of the spacecraft that brought the samples back to Earth. The Chang’e-5 collected 4.5 pounds of material in a vast, previously unexplored lava plain known as Oceanus Procellarum. The capsule will be airlifted to Beijing for opening, and the Moon samples will be delivered to a research team for analysis and study.

• China has spent billions of dollars on its military-run space program in an effort to catch up with the United States and Russia. China launched its first satellite in 1970. The country’s first human spaceflight was achieved in 2003. The Chinese landed a lunar rover on the far side of the Moon in January 2019.

• Thomas Zurbuchen, a top official at NASA’s science mission directorate, tweeted “The international science community celebrates your successful Chang’e 5 mission. These samples will help reveal secrets of our Earth-Moon system (and) gain new insights about the history of our solar system.” China will make some of the samples available to scientists in other countries.

• China’s future space goals include creating a powerful rocket capable of delivering payloads heavier than those NASA and private rocket firm SpaceX can handle, a lunar base, a permanently crewed space station, and a Mars rover.

**Chang’e 5 return module on the ground in Mongolia**

An unmanned Chinese spacecraft carrying rocks and soil from the Moon returned safely to Earth early

**Staff members examine the return module**

Thursday, completing the first mission in four decades to collect lunar samples. While scientists hope the samples will give insights into the Moon’s origins and volcanic activity on its surface, the trip was also another high-profile chapter in China’s bid to become a space superpower. In images broadcast on state television, a Chinese flag was flown at the snow-covered grasslands where the capsule landed in the country’s remote north.

The probe’s return “demonstrates the complete accomplishment of China’s first mission to collect samples from an extraterrestrial body,” China’s National Space Administration (CNSA) said.

China is now only the third country to have retrieved samples from the Moon, following the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s.

Chang’e-5, named after a mythical Chinese Moon goddess, landed on the Moon on 1 December.

While there, it raised the Chinese flag, the country’s space agency said.

When the probe left the Moon two days later, that marked the first time that China had achieved take-off from an extraterrestrial body, it said.
The module then went through the delicate operation of linking up in lunar orbit with the part of the spacecraft that brought the samples back to Earth.

The Chang’e-5 mission was to collect two kilograms (4.5 pounds) of material in an area known as Oceanus Procellarum — or “Ocean of Storms” — a vast, previously unexplored lava plain, according to the science journal Nature.

The capsule will be airlifted to Beijing for opening, and the Moon samples will be delivered to a research team for analysis and study, China’s space agency said.

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America’s ‘Star Wars’ Against China

December 5, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Tom Fowdy November 25, 2020 (news.cgtn.com)

• The Trump administration has announced that it is adding an additional 89 Chinese aerospace companies to the list of those prohibited from acquiring US-made components and technologies without approval, linking them to a “national security threat.” The obvious goal is protectionism – to stifle China’s own development in the aerospace sector, forcing China to rely on US firms such as Boeing.

• The Trump administration has made the decision that China represents a competitor in space exploration and technology, and that Beijing wants to militarize outer space. As China sends its Chang’e-5 lunar module to the Moon, Trump is trying to undermine China’s entire aerospace industry to gain the upper hand.

• In 2018, Trump created Space Force “to protect US and allied interests in space and to provide space capabilities to the joint force” including satellite-orientated warfare and missile technology. Is this not the militarization of outer space contravening the 1967 Outer Space Treaty? The United States wants to gain unchallenged military hegemony over the entire world and sees China as a “competitor.”

• The US defense community claims that it is Beijing that is militarizing space as it works on its own satellite and exploration programs. As an article from Defense News claims, “China wants to dominate space, and the US must take countermeasures.” Beijing, however, claims to uphold the consensus that space is for peaceful development only.

• In December 2019, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang condemned the US Space Force, stating, “The relevant US actions are a serious violation of the international consensus on the peaceful use of outer space, undermine global strategic balance and stability, and pose a direct threat to outer space peace and security.”

• The “China threat” narrative is about maintaining US strategic supremacy as the only major player in outer space. This view predates Trump, with the Obama administration banning coordination of China’s national space agency with NASA in 2011, and excluding China from participating in the international space station.

• More attention should be focused on America’s emerging “Star Wars” against China. Space Force is a new strategic frontier for American militarization, aimed at competitor states such as China, in contravention of international law. The development of outer space exploration and technology ought only to be for peaceful purposes for “the common heritage of mankind.”

• [Editor’s Note] Can the Chinese Communist Party be trusted to be peaceful? The CCP has come under the control of the Deep State and President Trump knows this. As the white hat Alliance is in the process of dismantling the Deep State – in America, in China, and everywhere else in the world – the Deep State would like nothing better than to trigger a global war in order to maintain its long-standing global domination. The Deep State-controlled CCP is desperate as the Chinese people, and even President Xi Jinping himself, see the Chinese government’s corruption and are turning against the established Communist Party. So as things come to a head now in this five-dimensional chess game, Trump and the US military may have a very good reason to keep the pressure on Beijing.

A few days ago the news was announced that the Trump administration was preparing to add an additional 89 Chinese companies to the commerce department’s entity list, prohibiting them from acquiring U.S.-made components and technologies without approval and claiming they are linked to the military and represent a “national security threat.” The firms were noticeably all in the aerospace industry, with an obvious goal of attempting to stifle China’s own development in this sector and force Beijing to be reliant on U.S. firms such as Boeing. Given the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) (a firm being listed) is launching its own domestically made alternative to the 737, the C919, next year, it is difficult to see the move in any other light. It’s obvious protectionism.

But there is another angle, a strategic one too, of outer space. The Trump administration has long made a decision that China represents a competitor in space exploration and technology, and claimed falsely that Beijing seeks to militarize the cosmos as a pretext for their own militarization plans, contravening the 1967 Outer Space Treaty which pledges that space and “celestial bodies” may only be used for “peaceful development” and not military means.

In doing so, the administration has over the past few years put in place plans to transform space into the newest “strategic frontier” and now, as China launches Chang’e-5, seeks to undermine China’s entire aerospace industry to gain the upper hand. As a result, this is a sphere worth watching.
The U.S. “Space Force”.

In 2018, Trump announced the creation of a “U.S. space force” or “space command.” Although the idea was ridiculed for sounding like something out of a science fiction novel, it is, in fact, something serious. The strategic objectives of such a command is, as is stated on its website, “to protect U.S. and allied interests in space and to provide space capabilities to the joint force.” That is the militarization of outer space. This includes things such as satellite-orientated warfare and missile technology. The United States wants to gain the upper hand in this sphere in order to maintain unchallenged military hegemony over the entire world and with that viewpoint comes the designation of China as a “competitor.”

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